Die Nemesis von Potsdam
Nemesis at Potsdam is the first book by the American lawyer and historian Alfred-Maurice de Zayas. The name Nemesis is drawn from Greek mythology, Nemesis being the Greek goddess of revenge. The implication is that at the Potsdam Conference (17 July to 2 August 1945) the victorious Allies of World War II took revenge on the Germans, entailing significant territorial losses in Eastern Europe and the forced transfer of some 15 million Germans from their homelands in East Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, East Brandenburg, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. In his preface Ambassador Robert Murphy wrote: "This is a revealing account which is timely, and it accurately portrays the tragic fate of the dramatic transfer of millions of Germans from Eastern Europe to the West, as the Second World War ground to a halt...It was advertised that the transfers should be made under 'humane' conditions. There was no controls or authoritative supervision, so that the individual refugee had no recourse or protection. It is true that the United States State Department voiced proper regard for the humanities, but its voice was not vigorous or even heard in Eastern Europe at the time of the expulsion. Few Americans dreamt of a brutal expulsion affecting perhaps 16 million persons!" The book is the first scholarly study in the English language concerning the expulsion of Germans after World War II. It effectively broke a taboo in the English-speaking world, and also in Germany and Austria, thus facilitating the subsequent research in the subject matter by other scholars. The book was dedicated to Victor Gollancz, whose seminal book Our Threatened Values had inspired the author when he was a student at Harvard. On 21 March 2010 de Zayas delivered a lecture at the University of Waterloo (Canada) on this topic. Table of contents of the book Foreword *Chapter I. The Principle of Populations Transfers *Chapter II. The Germans of Czechoslovakia *Chapter III. The Genesis of the Oder-Neisse Line: The Conferences of Tehran and Yalta *Chapter IV. The Flight: Prelude to the Expulsions *Chapter V. Anglo-American Plan of Limited Transfers *Chapter VI. "Orderly and Humane" Transfers *Chapter VII. From Morgenthau-Plan to Marshall-Plan *Chapter VIII. Peace without a Peace Treaty *Chapter IX. Recognition or Revision of the Oder-Neisse Line *Chapter X. Towards The Future: The Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe- The Berlin question and detente - The German expellees today - Anglo-American attitudes Printing history The book Nemesis at Potsdam was originally published in 1977 by Routledge & Kegan Paul in London and Boston with a preface by US Ambassador Robert Murphy, a participant at the Potsdam Conference and former political advisor of General Dwight D. Eisenhower during World War II and of General Lucius Clay during the American military government in Germany. The book had three editions with Routledge, followed by two editions with the University of Nebraska Press. The current sixth revised and updated edition was published by Picton Press, Rockland, Maine, 2003 296 pp. ISBN 0-89725-360-4, and it includes translations of the relevant Benes and AVNOI decrees as well as additional archival material. The book is a revised version of a doctoral dissertation for the History Faculty of the University of Göttingen in Germany. Although a scholarly book with 761 endnotes and 47 pages of bibliography: archives, interviews and secondary sources, the book quickly became a best seller. It received praise in the American Journal of International Law, the American Historical Review,Foreign Affairs, the Times Educational Supplement, British Book News etc. However, some historians have criticized the book contending that de Zayas had not given enough space to the Nazi crimes, that he relied too much on the stories of the German victims and their political representatives, that he is too legalistic in his analysis of the Potsdam conference, and because of the tone of the "moral outrage" expressed by the author. See Lothar Ketteracker in the "Historische Zeitschrift", John Campbell, Detleff Brandes, and in the Polish and Czech Press: O III Rzeszy coraz sympatyczniej, Trybuna Ludu 30.VII.1980, Nr. 179. The English version was published under the full title: Nemesis at Potsdam: The Anglo-Americans and the Expulsion of the Germans. Background, Execution, Consequences. ISBN 0 7100 0458 3 (hardbound) 0 7100 0410 9 (paperback). It experienced three editions with Routledge, two editions with the University of Nebraska Press, and is still in print, thirty-one years after its initial publication, in a much revised and enlarged edition with Picton Press in Rockland, Maine ISBN 0-89725-360-4. The Picton edition contains excerpts from the statement to the German expellees by the first United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Dr. Jose Ayala Lasso, at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt a.M. on 28 May 1995, and excerpts of the final report of the UN Rapporteur (now judge at the International Court of Justice) Awn Shawkat Al Khasawneh on the illegality of forced population transfers (UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/23). An enlarged German edition, with previously unpublished photographs from the United States Army Signal Corps, facsimiles of documents from the National Archives, Public Record Office, Federal Swiss Archives in Bern, and Bundesarchiv-Koblenz, was published in October 1977 by C.H. Beck in Munich, Germany's foremost law publisher. It experienced six editions with C.H. Beck, three editions with dtv (the leading pocketbook editor in Germany), four editions with Ullstein, and is still in print in its 14th revised and enlarged edition with Herbig Verlag in Munich, published under the title Die Nemesis von Potsdam. ISBN 3-7766-2454-X. The Herbig edition was positively reviewed in Die Presse (Vienna) and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Professional Reviews In his 2007 book "After the Reich" Giles MacDonough(John Murray Publishers, London 2007. pp. 126, 556, etc.) notes: "There is a similar lack of documentation in English on events in Czechoslovakia. The best remains Alfred M. de Zayas's Nemesis at Potsdam (London 1979)," p. 585. Professor Tony Howarth wrote in the Times Educational Supplement: "His is a lucid, scholarly and compassionate study. Most pertinently he insists that we deny what the lesser histories conspire with us to invent - that there are stopping places in history." 22 April 1977, p. 495. US Nuremberg Prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz in the American Journal of International Law: "The author, effectively using maps and photographs, traces the history of the expellees. Aided by Marshall Plan funds the millions of displaced persons, still longing for their homelands, recognized the futility of resort to force and turned to hard work to rebuild their lives by absorption in a democratic and peaceful society. The Helsinki Conference of 1975 in effect acknowledged that the provisional Oder-Neisse demarcation line implied de facto annexation. The lesson from this well organized and moving historical record is not merely that retribution which penalizes innocent human beings becomes injustice, but that acceptance of political realities may be a better road to human fulfillment than the path of violence Alfred de Zayas has written a persuasive commendatry on the suffering which becomes inevitable when humanitarianism is subordinated to nationalism." Vol. 72, October 1978, p. 960. Professor Carl G. Anthon in the American Historical Review: "De Zayas writes with sympathy for the refugees and moral indignation over what he, as an international lawyer, concludes was another crime against humanity, but he strives to show how Allied decisions regarding postwar Germany were the product of many factors, such as horror over Nazi atrocities, the passions of war and victory, and considerable ignorance on the part of Anglo-American leaders regarding the actual state of affairs in Central and Eastern Europe". American Historical Review, December 1978, p. 1289, reviewing the German version "Die Anglo-Amerikaner und die Vertreibung der Deutschen". Professor A.K. Damodaran in International Studies: "An excellent piece of historical research", 1991, volume 28, Number 3, pages 348-51. Alfred Connor Bowman in the American Bar Association Journal: "The book serves a useful purpose in its careful recapitulation in time sequence of the significant series of historic events that were the aftermath of World War II. For example, it shakes one a bit, but is good for the soul, to be reminded that, although treaties of peace were signed soon after the end of hostilities with Italy, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, there has been no treaty with either Germany. ..especially for lawyers with a historical bent, it will be rewarding reading." December 1977, p. 1752-54. Professor Frederick Dumin, Washington State University, in German Studies Review: "When read carefully, this book will be of considerable value to students, interested laymen, and general historians. The rather extensive bibliography is also worthy of note. With increasing concern over human rights, past and present, surely this horrible episode will receive growing attention. Recognizing realities, one cannot see how these injustices can be rectified, since those who committed them have made no effort to even recognize them. One can only hope that two wrongs have taught enough lessons to prevent a third. The historian, however, is bound to deal with these events in the same manner as he deals with earlier crimes against humanity." October. 1979, pp. 401-2. Professor James H. Wolfe in Southern Review: "Beginning with an historical overview of population transfers, the author examines in detail the diplomatic environment of World War II in which the decisions to alter frontiers and transplant populations were made. The Potsdam Conference occupies a key position in his analysis, since on this occasion the United States and Great Britain sanctioned the expulsions. Turning to the study of the human consequences of these forced migrations, de Zayas has frequently relied on interviews, such as that with Robert Murphy, the wartime political adviser of General Eisenhower, and on previously untapped archival resources. The fresh insigts of the chapters on Allied military governance and the division of Germany in the immediate postwar period make this work essential reading for students of European interntional relations." , 1977, Vol. 15, no.4, 420-421. Professor Juergen Doerr in Dalhousie Review: "De Zayas does not ignore the enormity of the crimes committed by Germans during the course of the war, nor does he deny that an anti-German feeling was natural and that punishment was justified, He does, however, question whether one set of crimes justified a second... whether revenge ... was not only extended to the guilty but to the innocent, whether expulsion itself was a crime ...While critical of western leadership, de Zayas leaves no doubt about the agents of the crime-- the Soviet leaders. The recent works of A. Solzhenitsyn and Lev Kopelev give further credence to the thesis that Soviet retributive actions were often not spontaneous but were planned ...Praised must be de Zayas's reopening of this largely neglected aspect of modern German history through this brief but well-written account." vol. 57, No. 3, Autumn 1977, pp. 582-584. Professor Henry Lane Hull in the Ukrainian Quarterly: "The basic thrust of Professor de Zayas' analysis centers on the ineptitude of the Allied leaders before the demands of Marshal Stalin and his successors. As the late Robert Murphy noted in the Foreword, Stalin's unsympathetic disregard of the rights of the individual Germans affected by population transfers is understandable in the context of Soviet hatred of the Nazi war machine. What is not understandable, however, is why Britain and the United States failed to see the injustice visited upon millions .... the bibliography is excellent and four folios of photographs graphically supplement the text. Substantially, organizationally and stylistically, this book is an outstanding historiographical achievement". Vol. XXXVII, No. 2, p. 181. Professor LaVern Rippley in Die Unterrichtspraxis: "Profusely illustrated with photographs, documents and excellent maps, this book analyzes the origin and the effects of article XIII of the Potsdam Protocol which provided that ethnic Germans living in the eastern countries would be transferred to the truncated remains of the Reich 'in an orderly and humane manner'. As the 16 million Germans were driven westward, some two million died, but the world remained silent. Outraged by the crimes Nazis had perpetrated ...the whole world, with a few exceptions, like Bertrand Russell and Albert Schweizer, remained mum.... de Zayas is perhaps best when delineating the legal aspects of the Potsdam action, although his historical facts are equally impeccable....Due to the willingness of the press and the scholarly comunity in the West to ignore these facts of the Potsdam accord, few Americans or Britons know there ever was an expulsion, let alone authorization of the compulsory transfer. Questioning rhetorically whether the wrong could ever be righted, de Zayas maintains that the West could affirm its regard for individual guilt or innocence and reject the concept of collective guilt." Vol. 11, No. 2, 1978, pp. 132-133. Dr. Raymond Lohne of Columbia College Chicago wrote in 2007: "The book Nemesis at Potsdam is important because it raises many troubling questions that have been avoided for 62 years. How is it possible that the British, French, Americans went to war to fight Hitler's inhumanities, and that at the end of the war we became complicit in the expulsion of 15 million human beings from their 700-year old homelands and co-responsible for the deaths of more than two million German civilians -- massacred by the Soviets, raped, despoiled of all of their possessions, thrown into a truncated Germany that was rubble and chaos? Victor Gollancz, the British socialist, condemned the expulsions again and again in 1945-48, but his voice was hardly heard, because the world had embraced the philosophy of German "collective guilt" and because we had neatly divided the world into perpetrators (the Germans) and victims (everybody else). This attitude permitted the worst crimes to be committed. Bertrand Rusell, he too protested, as did Brishop Bell of Chichester. But the expulsions continued relentlessly. Another question we must come to grips with is how could an event so portentious as the expulsion of 15 million human beings -- much greater in scope that all of the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia - could be kept out of the consciousness of Americans, British, French. How is it possible that the history departments of universities did not take up the matter and ask graduate students to write doctoral dissertations on it? How is it possible that today practically no one knows that Germany lost 1/3 of its territory at the end of World War II and that two million human beings perished in the maelstrom of expulsion, malnutrition and disease? It is high time that "Nemesis at Potsdam" be taught in every high school and every university. The reviews in the American Journal of International Law and other scholarly journals were excellent (see the de Zayas site for some 60 reviews) -- and yet the subject matter has remained politically incorrect and therefore taboo. We owe it to ourselves to learn more about these "unsung victims". (comment in the Wikipedia -- see Talk "Nemesis at Potsdam") Journal reviews, Media and Press On 13 February 1977 Craig Whitney reported in the New York Times, and on 17 February 1977 in the International Herald Tribune: "A young legal scholar from New York, Alfred de Zayas, has written a book on a subject long taboo and ignored by German writers -- the brutal expulsion of 16 million Germans from their homelands in Central and Eastern Europe after the Red Army moved in... Mr. de Zayas, who is 29 years old and has a fellowship at the University of Göttingen emphasized: ... 'I had taken a number of courses in history at Fordham and Harvard and this was just never mentioned. I don't think people outside Germany know much about it.' Truman, Churchill and Stalin agreed at Potsdam in 1945 that the German populations of Eastern Europe should undergo 'transfer to Germany' but 'in an orderly and humane manner'. The de Zayas book makes clear that the last provision was not fulfilled." Christoph Kimmich in Foreign Affairs: "An account of British and American acquiescence in the brutal expulsion of millions of Germans from their homes in East-Central Europe at the end of World War II. The author ... makes much of the legal (and moral) implications of the issue while understating its historical complexities." July 1977, Volume 55, Number 4. David Steeds in British Book News: "Mr de Zayas... is surely right to dwell on their miseries and on the double standards of the victors. Some of them, after all, professed to believe in the principles of the Atlantic Charter. The book should cause argument and controversy; it deserves a wide readership." David Mutch in the Christian Science Monitor: "Mr. de Zayas is a lawyer, and is clearly opposed to mass population transfers on moral, legal and historical grounds...He argues that overreaction to the evils of the Nazis led to the principle of collective German guilt, a theory that does not protect the innocent and which ruled the thoughts and actions of many responsible British and American officials when they agreed to the expulsion demands of Stalin. Only later did they realize the inherent inhumanity of the results of their lack of perception...his short but heavily documented book (with 40 pages of notes, a long bibliography, interviews with persons involved, and a long research into unpublished U.S., British and German Documents) fills a gap." 25 March 1977, p. 17. Norman Lederer in Worldview: "De Zayas painstakingly details the manner in which Eastern European emigré governments during World War II prepared the way for Allied approval of the mass expulsion of Germans following the conflict. Their distortions of fact had a decided effect on the thinking of many Western leades. Ironically, it was Winston Churchell, the nemesis depicted in Goebbels' propagnada to the German people, who foresaw most clearly the immense human tragedy that would result from the mass expulsions and who tried to curb the Eastern European countries' desire for territorial expansion at the expense of the German state. The Russian invasion of East Prussia aided the Eastern European leaderrs in getting their way. Hundreds of thousands of German civilians hurried west before the terrifying apparition of the shockingly undisciplined soviet army. Eastern leaders stated that this exodus had cleared out all the Germans, conveniently ignoring the fact tha misslions remained. These millions were abruptly ousted once formal conflict had ended ... book is an important work on an enormously important but little known aspect of World War II" July/August 1978, pp. 54-55. Patrick Buchanan, former Republican candidate for the Presidency of the US and television commentator, wrote in a column dated 13 April 2010: "As human rights champion Alfred de zayas wrote in his courageous 'Nemesis at Potsdam: The Expulsion of the Germans from the East' perhaps two million died in the exodus. Few German women in Eastern Europe escaped rape." http://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2010/04/12/katyn-and-the-good-war/ William Guttmann in the Observer: "The author traces the genesis of the relevant territorial arrangements and ensuing population transfers and then gives a well-documented and horrifying account of the exodus, the sufferings and deaths of millions, the ruthlessness of the new masters -- a travesty of the 'orderly and humane' fashion in which the measures were supposed to be carried out." Reviews of the German edition Dr. Patrick Sutter in the Neuen Zürcher Zeitung, reviewing the 14th revised edition of 2005: "Die Vertreibung der Deutschen nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg als logische Konsequenz der Hitlerschen Verbrechen zu bezeichnen 'kann nicht befriedigen, wenn man die Komplexität der Gründe und des Geschehens um die Vertreibung der Deutschen verstehen will. Man muss das Eigengewicht der Ziele der Gegenmächte in Ost wie in West mit einbeziehen.' Dies unternimmt inzwischen in der 14. deutschsprachigen Auflage der Amerikaner Alfred de Zayas, der während mehr als zwei Jahrzehnten in leitender Stellung in UNO-Menschenrechtsgremien tätig war. Dass er sich seit der Erstfassung (1977) an der Rechtsstellung von Individuen orientiert und Vorstellungen einer Aufrechtung kollektiver Schuld eine Absage erteilt, macht die Stärke des Buches aus. Denn er ist nicht nur promovierter Historiker, sondern auch promovierter Jurist. Das Völkerrecht verbietet bekanntlich Kollektivstrafen. In minuziöser Quellenbarbeit zeigt de Zayas, dass in Polen und der Tschechoslowakei schon lange vor dem Krieg die Absicht gehegt wurde, die dort wohnhaften Deutschen aus ihrer rund 700-jährigen Heimat zu vertreiben. Beide Staaten missachteten ihre völkerrechtlichen Verpflichtungen zum Schutz der Minderheiten. Der von de Zayas als Rassist demaskierte Benes verstand es dann ab den früher 1940er Jahren, den späteren Siegermächten die Politik der Vertreibung der Deutschen als Preis für Frieden und Stabilität zu verkaufen. Die Ostmächte wussten dieses Programm in den Verhandlungen über die Nachkriegsordnung (vor allem in Potsdam) gegenüber den Westmächten geschickt durchzusetzen. Letztere begnügten sich mit der Forderung nach einem 'humanen' Vorgehen. Auf diese 'humane' Weise wurden 15 Milllionen Deutsche vertrieben, wobei 2 Millionen - grösstenteils an Hunger - starben. Das Elend der Flüchtlinge betraf ja vor allem Frauen, Kinder, Alte und Kranke. Der Völkerrechtler Felix Ermacora qualifiziert diese Vertreibungen als Genozid. Man verharmlost die Verbrechen der Nazis kein bisschen, wenn man nicht akzeptieren will, dass sie dazu dienen sollten, Völkerrechtsverbrechen zu legitimieren, die zudem bis heute grösstenteils weder moralisch anerkannt noch juristisch aufgearbeitet sind. De Zayas erkennt darin einen Präzedenzfall für spätere Vertreibungen in Palästina, Zypern, Bosnien oder Kosovo. Sein engagiertes Wirken gegen solche 'Kriegsstrategien' hat bedeutenden Anteil daran, dass sich das Recht auf die Heimat in den letzten Jahren als fundamentales Menschenrecht etablieren konnte." 23. Februar 2006, Seite 9. "In nüchternen Zahlen listet Alfred de Zayas, US-Anwalt und ehemaliger Sekretär des UNO-Menschenrechtsausschusses, auf: 600,000 Deutsche sind durch Gewalt bzw. Vertreibungsverbrechen (Vergewaltigung, Mord) umgekommen; weitere 1.5 Millionen sind in Internierungslagern, bei den Flüchtlingsmärschen und nach der Ankunft im Westen an Kälte, Erschöpfung, Krankheit, Hunger, verstorben....Wer sich den Prinzipien der Humanität verpflichtet fühlt, muss sich allen Ungerechtigkeiten stellen." Die Presse Wien, 23 Januar 2006, Seite 30. "Vom tiefem Ernst und bohrender Gründlichkeit". SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG "...in der Beweisführung von bestechender Präzision...Kein amerikanischer Autor hat bisher die historischen Folgen so umfassend und klar analysiert". DIE ZEIT "Ein äußerst bemerkenswertes Buch". Die Welt "... das wichtigste Buch über die Vertreibung der Deutschen". ARD-Report "Ihm geht es allein darum, bewusst zu machen, was an Unmenschlichkeiten geschehen ist, und eine Wiederholung des Unrechts der Vertreibung für alle Völker dieser Erde vermeiden zu helfen". WDR "Alfred de Zayas schreibt nüchtern, im Stil jener jungen amerikanischen Historiker-Generation, die nicht davor zurückschreckt, mögliche Fehler der US-Administration im Umgang mit Moskau aufzuzeichnen". Deutsche Welle "Diese Dokumentation zeichnet sich durch Sachlichkeit, Objektivität und umfangreiches Quellenmaterial aus". NDR Professor Gotthold Rhode in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "Was ist das Besondere und Bemerkenswerte an diesem Buch? In erster Linie wohl die Tatsache, dass hier von einem unbefangegnen und sichtbar engagierten Amerikaner die Mitverantwortung der angloamerikanischen Politik an einer der großen Katastrophen der Nachkriegsjahre festgehalten wird - nicht im anklaegerischen Ton des Moralisten sondern in dem der verfolgten Unschuld, sondern mit nuechterner Sachlichkeit ...In zweiter Linie ist bedeutsam, dass bekannte Schilderungen der Unmenschlichkeit der Vertreibung, die hier nochmals eindrucksvoll zusammengestellt werden, durch Berichte amerikanischer Gesandter aus Prag und Warschau ergaenzt und bestaetigt werden". 21 Februar 1978, Seite 21. "De Zayas hat mit groeßter Sorgfalt die Akten studiert und Zeugen der Zeit auf alliierter wie auf deutscher Seite befragt. Sein Buch ist wissenschaftlich sachlich, unparteilich, aber doch deutlich gepraegt von einem Sinn fuer Fairness und Gerechtigkeit". Sender Freies Berlin The Minister of Inner-German Affairs (Bundesminister für Inner-Deutsche Beziehungen)Heinrich Windelen in 1987: "Es ist das Verdienst von Herrn de Zayas, die Debatte über die Vertreibung wieder eröffnet zu haben, eine Thematik, die weitgehend in Vergessenheit geraten war oder direkt vermieden wurde, weil sie als nicht gesellschaftsfähig oder opportun galt. In der Folgezeit haben in der Tat eine Reihe Autoren auf das Werk von de Zayas zurückgegriffen. Somit hat er wesentlich dazu beigetragen, dass die Erörterung der Vertreibung heute nicht mehr als Tabu angesehen wird." Bundesminister a.D. Heinrich Windelen in the preface to the de Zayas book "Anmerkungen zur Vertreibung". Reviews in French "Le livre de Dr. de Zayas se fonde sur une étude très approfondie des sources, notamment anglaises et americaines, ainsi que sur des interviews de l'auteur. Le livre donne une analyse très claire de la politique des puissances occidentales." Journal du Droit International, Avril-Mai-Juin, 1977, p. 541-542. "La plupart des historiens de la 2e guerre mondiale négligent l'episode à beaucoup d'égards peu honorable que fut le déplacement forcé de quelque 16 millions d'Allemands de leurs foyers de Prusse orientale, de Poméranie, de Posnanie, de Silésie et du territorie des Sudètes décidé à Potsdam en août 1945 -- transfert dont 2 millions d'individus ne devraient pas revenir. Cette migration obligatoire était-elle nécessaire à la paix d'Europe? porquoi les Etats-Unis et la Grande-Bretagne ont-ils permis cette expulsion massive? celle-ci était-elle compatible avec les principles de la Charte de l'Atlantique? Telles sont quelques-unes des questions auxquelles M. de Zayas s'efforce de répondre dans cet ouvrage auquel l'auteur songeait dès 1969 et qu'il ne devait entreprendre que beaucoup plus tard, après deux séjours en Allemagne, encouragé dans son projet par ses anciens maîtres de Harvard, les professeurs Baxter et Hunt. L'ouvrage est édifiant et sera pour beaucoup une révelation. M. de Zayas n'est pas tendre pour les Alliées, qui ont fermé les yeux sur 'l'une des entreprises les plus inhumaines de l'histoire de la civilisation occidentale', la responsabilité des démocraties anglo-saxonnes étant à cet égard primordiale." Revue générale de Droit International Public, tome 81/1977/2, p. 597. On Tuesday 14 June 1977 the BBC French Language Service from London broadcast a 13-minute review: "...la loi du plus fort - ce qui réduit nos principles à néant - et supprime plus de la moitié de la valeur de notre propaganda de guerre! En outre, cet 'oeil pour oeil, dent pour dent' est un peu simpliste. Les protestations justifiées que les atrocités allemandes en pays occupés avaient provoquées, alors que ous n'étions pas - temporairement - le splus forsts, perdaient de leur valeur morale si nous nous abaissions à notre tour aux tratements barbares ... Soyons donc sincères: si M. de Zayas a raison - et il nous arrive armé d'un formidable arsenal de statistiques, de céclarations de dirigeants occidentaux, de communiquées de la Croix Rouge, de rapports de commissions d'enquête, etc. .. qui prouvent qu'il a raisson - on ne peut que conclure qu'il nous faudra changer bien des choses avant que nos sentiments humanitaires ne deviennent une réalité. Par réalité j'entends la realité humanine affranchie de toute tenture politique. Si notre civilisation est vraiment basée, comme il l'écrit, sur la 'dignitas humana' - la dignité humaine et sur de sages principes de rison, comment expliquer ce qui suit?" repeated on BBC 8 June 1977, 1530, Tape No. 7R/03 Q 056 E. Evaluation Although the book was a bestseller in the US and Germany, there continues to be a certain reluctance to talk about Germans as victims. Indeed, in the light of the enormity of the Holocaust, everything else pales. Yet, as the first UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Dr. Jose Ayala Lasso (Ecuador) told the German expellees on 28 May 1995 at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt a.M.: "There is no doubt that during the Nazi occupation the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe,especially the jews and certain minorities, suffered enormous injustices that cannot be forgotten. Accordingly they had a legitimate claim for reparation. However, legitimate claims ought not to be enforced through collective punishment on the basis of general discrimination and without a determination of personal guilt. In the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials the crucial principle of personal responsibility for crimes was wisely applied. It is worth while to reread the Nuremberg protocols and judgment. Our goal remains the universal recognition of human rights, which are based on the principle of the equality of all human beings. Indeed, all victims of war and injustice deserve our respect and compassion, since every individual human life is precious. It is our duty to continue our endeavors in the name of the dignitas humana." Gradually other scholarly books are being written on the subject and the television and other media in Germany has taken an interest in it. For instance, the Discovery Channel broadcast a documentary film on the sinking of the refugee ship "Wilhelm Gustloff" on 30 January 1945, with the loss of some 9,000 human beings. De Zayas was the historical advisor of that documentary. In 2002 Nobel laureate Günther Grass published a small novel entitled "Krebsgang" ("Crabwalk") which brought additional attention to the plight of the Germans from East Prussia, Pomerania and Danzig. Other programs on "Die Flucht" have been recently broadcast in German channels 1 and 2. (talk) 12:07, 12 November 2010 (UTC) References Interview in The Record, Waterloo, Canada: http://news.therecord.com/news/article/687051 Article by Professor Ralph Raico 10 June 2010: http://www.lewrockwell.com/raico/raico32.1.html http://www.pictonpress.com/store/show/1042 --> Category:1977 books Category:Aftermath of World War II *